TY - JOUR
T1 - Review: <em>Concrete from Archeology to Invention 1700–1769: The Renaissance of Pozzolana and Roman Construction Techniques</em>, by Roberto Gargiani
JF - Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians
SP - 501
LP - 503
M3 - 10.1525/jsah.2016.75.4.501
VL - 75
IS - 4
AU - Lancaster, Lynne C.
Y1 - 2016/12/01
UR - http://jsah.ucpress.edu/content/75/4/501.abstract
N2 - Roberto Gargiani Concrete from Archeology to Invention 1700–1769: The Renaissance of Pozzolana and Roman Construction Techniques Lausanne, Switzerland: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (distributed by Routledge), 2013, 404 pp., 300 color and 16 b/w illus. $115.95, ISBN 9782940222643This book is part of a series titled Treatise on Concrete, which is edited by Roberto Gargiani and published by his university, the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Concrete from Archeology to Invention 1700–1769, authored by Gargiani, is the first of a group of works within the series that focus on the development of concrete during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe. In the preface, Gargiani states that the book's goal is to document the evolution of construction techniques through archival research. Indeed, he presents a tremendous amount of material from treatises, old journals, personal letters, and state entities that are otherwise not easily accessible. In fact, large portions of the text consist of quotations (translated into English) from the archival sources. On the one hand, this is a useful service, but on the other, any sort of narrative is lost in the minutiae. The author's interest in the people who wrote the documents is reflected in his choice to index only proper names and not places or subjects. Nevertheless, the volume contains a wealth of valuable information if one is willing to mine for it.The book begins with an exploration of the period when researchers were trying to discover the secret of the longevity of Roman concrete. Vitruvius's treatise offered a starting point, with its formulas for creating hydraulic mortar with pulvis (powder) from the Bay of Naples (Pliny the Elder's pulvis Puteolanus, powder from Puteoli—i.e., volcanic ash), but many people at the time believed that ancient craftsmen long before Vitruvius had created a type of mysterious artificial stone, pierre fondue (11–14). Gargiani notes that developments during the eighteenth century were marked by “an extraordinary mixture of scientific research and fantastic interpretation of sources and ruins” (11). One might even see these competing approaches as …
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